Another Post on Marines

Eric, a former Marine, and the mighty fine blogger of Straight White Guy, has this GREAT post on the Marines HERE. (Read it!)

I won't go into how much I love the Marines. I've blogged on it before. I will again. But here are a couple stories, personal stories, to add to his.

One of his quotes is from Lt.Col Oliver North (USMC ret.): 'The only people I like beside my wife and kids are Marines.'

There was this guy I worked with at my old job. He was a former Marine. He did a few tours in 'Nam. He was a tunnel rat at one point. I used to tell people that when the sh-- went down, I wanted to be beside him. When lay offs were going on and the supervisors were raking each other's employees over the coals, behind closed doors, trying to save their own, I wanted to be on his team. He was safe to me. Others thought he was a nut. Not me. I'd go walking or running in the morning at work, and a couple times he met up with me (he used to run at home), and here I'd be in my running clothes, feeling like I was going to vomit... but there was no way in hell I was going to vomit next to this man running shirtless with shrapnel wounds, a couple stab wounds, and healed broken back from a 'Nam chopper crash. Nope. I gladly ran next to him and managed to stay contained.

Now go over to Eric's HERE and read the quote on what a wife thinks of a Marine. This reminded me of my best friend from college. She married a Marine fighter pilot. Great guy. He ends up on shore duty and he's supposed to go to some civilian schooling... I think it was FAA crash investigation now that I think about it. Anyway, he's freaking out because he has to wear civies the entire time. My friend, quite the fashionable girl, looks at the clothes her Marine husband has packed and she yells, 'YOU CANNOT wear your Marine Corps green t-shirts with your white dress shirts! You MUST OWN A WHITE T-SHIRT SOMEWHERE!" Heh. He didn't. She had to run out and buy him some.

Finally she goes through his clothes, mixing and matching ties and pants and shirts and jackets and he is exasperated (they did some heavy duty clothes shopping for this schooling) and she says, "Fine. I will put Geranimal tags on all your clothes so you know what to wear with what."

That cracked me up.

Did I tell you I love the Marines?